Chapter 3 - The SignatureLucas was still at the mansion when Detective Bennett returned.
Jonathan refused to take Oliver home.
Instead, Melanie’s sister agreed to prepare a guest room at her nearby house where Oliver could sleep after leaving the hospital.
Jonathan stayed with him until the boy finally drifted off.
Then he returned to the mansion.
Lucas was in the formal dining room with an attorney.
“Seriously?” Jonathan said.
Lucas stood.
“I was told not to leave. I wasn’t told I couldn’t call counsel.”
“Did you shut off the cameras?”
Lucas glanced at Bennett.
“I’m not answering questions without my lawyer.”
Jonathan stepped closer.
“You didn’t need a lawyer when my son was trapped inside a cabinet.”
“Jonathan.”
Beatrice’s voice came from behind him.
She stood at the opposite doorway.
“Stop.”
Jonathan turned.
“You want me to stop?”
“I want you to think.”
“My son was bound in a cabinet.”
“I know.”
“Someone told him I was going to give you this house.”
Beatrice’s face barely changed.
“That proves nothing.”
“No. But this does.”
Bennett held up a printed system log.
“The camera shutdown was initiated using Lucas Hale’s administrator credentials.”
Lucas’s attorney touched his arm.
“Do not respond.”
Lucas looked furious.
“I wasn’t even in the security room.”
Bennett replied, “The command was remote.”
Lucas went silent.
Jonathan felt anger pushing against his ribs.
“Why?”
Lucas shook his head.
“I didn’t hurt Oliver.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Before Lucas could answer, another officer entered.
“Detective?”
He handed Bennett a clear evidence sleeve.
Inside was a crumpled document.
Bennett read the first page.
Then looked at Jonathan.
“Do you recognize this?”
She placed it on the table without allowing him to touch it.
It was a property transfer agreement.
Jonathan read the first paragraph.
His heart began pounding.
The document proposed transferring the mansion from the Claire Hale Trust into Hale Family Holdings.
At the bottom of the last page was his name.
Under it—
a signature.
His signature.
Except Jonathan had never signed the document.
“That’s forged.”
Beatrice’s eyes narrowed.
Lucas stared at the page.
Bennett asked, “You’re certain?”
“I rejected this proposal three times.”
“Where was it found?”
“In the wastebasket of the upstairs study.”
Jonathan looked toward his mother.
Beatrice lifted her chin.
“You’re looking at me as though I forged it.”
“You wanted the transfer.”
“I wanted a sensible financial decision.”
“You wanted my son’s house.”
“The house is an asset, Jonathan. Not a shrine.”
Claire had hated when Beatrice called it that.
An asset.
A fourteen-million-dollar asset.
The place where Oliver had taken his first steps.
Where Claire had planted roses.
Where Jonathan had held her hand during her final months with cancer.
Jonathan’s jaw tightened.
“You argued with Claire about this house before she died.”
Beatrice’s expression flashed.
Only for a moment.
But Jonathan saw it.
Bennett did too.
“What argument?” the detective asked.
Beatrice spoke quickly.
“Family disagreements. Nothing relevant.”
Jonathan stared at her.
Claire had once told him Beatrice wanted the house badly enough to “burn every bridge in the family.”
He had thought Claire was exaggerating.
He no longer did.
The officer returned with another evidence bag.
This one contained a black fiber.
“Recovered from the edge of the cabinet.”
Bennett looked at Lucas.
He was wearing a navy jacket.
Not black.
Beatrice wore cream.
Melanie had been wearing a black housekeeping uniform.
Jonathan remembered her standing in the hallway.
Crying.
Bennett asked, “Where is Ms. Grant?”
“Staff sitting room,” the officer answered.
Jonathan closed his eyes briefly.
Melanie had helped raise Oliver.
She had fed him when Claire was in treatment.
She had slept in a chair outside his bedroom when he had pneumonia.
Could she have—
No.
Jonathan stopped himself.
That was what whoever planned this wanted.
Suspicion everywhere.
No certainty anywhere.
Bennett’s phone vibrated again.
She checked the message.
Then looked at Jonathan.
“We contacted your family attorney regarding this document.”
“My attorney?”
“She says someone attempted to electronically record a transfer related to the property at 9:17 this morning.”
Jonathan’s stomach dropped.
“Using what?”
“A notarized signature page.”
“I never signed one.”
Bennett’s expression became grim.
“Then someone wasn’t just planning to frighten you into transferring the house.”
Jonathan stared at the forged signature.
“They already tried.”
“Yes.”
“And when it failed…”
His eyes moved toward the kitchen.
Toward the cabinet.
Bennett finished the thought.
“They escalated.”
Then Lucas suddenly spoke.
“I know why the cameras were turned off.”
Everyone looked at him.
His attorney whispered, “Lucas.”
But Lucas kept staring at his brother.
“I didn’t put Oliver in that cabinet.”
Jonathan stepped closer.
“Then tell me what you did.”
Lucas swallowed.
May you like
“Mom asked me to shut the cameras down.”
Beatrice’s face went white.
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